Hello, Upper Middle Class! I see you there, at your professional job, with your graduate degree and your above-average salary and your subtle gradations of taste. I bet you thought 2012 was going to be your year! Sorry, bud: both Starbucks and the Times are raising their prices.

Starbucks prices in the Northeast will go up by an average of one percent, driven by "high costs for things like coffee, milk and fuel." (In New York City, "tall" coffees and lattes will cost 10 cents more.) The Times, meanwhile, is now charging $2.50 for a weekday paper, up from $2.00; subscription prices will rise accordingly.

Beset on all sides by rising prices, cultural irrelevance, and slow murder of soul at the hand of capitalism, what can the Upper Middle Class do? They could join the Upper Class, subscribe to The Wall Street Journal and drink coffee from the Nespresso machines in their limos. Or they might join the Regular Middle Class, watch television news, and drink Dunkin Donuts.